


Out of Place

by toyhto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst, Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 23:41:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10887327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: So he stared through the window at the fields that were slowly turning brown and wondered how far Sirius was prepared to drive. He wouldn’t ask, though. Sirius probably wanted to see how long he could take it and he could take it until they drove into the ocean.





	Out of Place

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by impossible-bbd, thank you so much! :)

The road was empty and looked like it went on until the end of the world or the border of Canada. They had started driving yesterday and now they were somewhere in Ohio. Remus was quite certain neither of them knew where they were going but he wasn’t going to be the first to say it aloud. It had been almost midnight when they had put their backpacks into the backseat of Sirius’ car that was far too old and crappy for fights like this. They had driven all night and in the morning they had parked the car in the empty parking lot of a closed supermarket. They had lowered the front seats and slept and hours later they had woken up when there had been people going shopping and kids trying to see them through the windows and parents trying to pull their kids away as quickly as possible. _Good thing we weren’t fucking_ , Remus had thought. But of course it was twelve years since they had slept together and after that everything had gone to pieces in ways that hadn’t been completely unimaginable beforehand because obviously Remus had always known something would go wrong eventually.  
  
They had used the supermarket bathroom to brush their teeth. Sirius kept washing his face and Remus had tried not to stare and silently he had thought _you’ve got old_ which was very unfair and also not true. They were both thirty-three now and Sirius was still the handsome one and what made him look old was actually only that twelve years had passed in a day, or so it sometimes felt. Sometimes he thought the last day of October 1981 had been yesterday and he had just stood in their crappy living room in New York and tried to hurt Sirius the best he could when what he had actually wanted to say had been _why don’t you trust me._ And sometimes he thought it had been a lifetime and more and he had changed beyond repair and Sirius had changed too.  
  
_It’s all come back too clearly_ , Joan Baez sang on the radio, _yes I loved you dearly_ , and Remus wanted to ask Sirius to switch the station. He would have rather listened to anything else but there was a risk Sirius would immediately know why and the thought of that was even worse. So he stared through the window at the fields that were slowly turning brown and wondered how far Sirius was prepared to drive. He wouldn’t ask, though. Sirius probably wanted to see how long he could take it and he could take it until they drove into the ocean. He had lost twelve years and now he would sit right here and Sirius could do absolutely nothing to get rid of him.  
  
“It’s funny that they’re playing her,” Sirius said. His voice was rough probably because he hadn’t said a word after he had told Remus they had to stop for coffee which had happened at least two hours ago. They had sat quietly in a tiny diner along the road. The waitress had tried to flirt with Sirius or so it had seemed and Remus had clenched his fists under the table and thought _really_ , because surely he couldn’t still be this jealous after twelve fucking years.  
  
“It’s not really _funny_ ,” he said now and felt Sirius’ glance on the side of his face.  
  
“It kind of is. Or have you stopped loving this song?”  
  
“I –,“ he began and then paused because there was really nothing he could say. He hated the song these days but it was the same hatred he had for himself and it had nothing to do with Joan Baez, it was only that he couldn’t bear the thought of himself lying naked on his back in the narrow bed when the sun came through the windows and on his face and his arms and the room smelled of sex and coffee and he could hear Sirius taking a shower because the bathroom door was ajar.  
  
“Fine,” Sirius said, “ _fine_ , don’t talk to me then, we can just sit here silent until we are -“  
  
“Where?”  
  
Sirius shook his head. Joan Baez had stopped singing and now Led Zeppelin  was on.  
  
“I’m not going to sleep another night in the car.”  
  
“Where then? Do you want me to take you to a hotel?”  
  
“I don’t have any money.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Sirius said with a tired voice. “You’re trying to make me turn back.”  
  
“No I’m not.”  
  
“Yes you are. But fuck you. We are going to find a cheap motel and then we’re going to sleep in the same room.”  
  
“We can’t do that.”  
  
“I was in your flat for three days.”  
  
“Yeah,” Remus said, “and you see how that turned out.”  
  
“It’s that or the car. You can pick.”  
  
“I never understood why I got stuck with you,” he said and then wished he hadn’t, but it seemed that even after twelve years he still couldn’t stop saying stupid things to Sirius.  
  
“You said _fine,_ ” Sirius said in a somehow dark voice that he knew well, “you said _fine, let’s take a drive_ and took your things and walked to the car.”  
  
“I didn’t mean that.”  
  
“What then,” Sirius said, his voice getting lower still so he probably knew exactly what Remus meant.  
  
“Shut up,” he said and then considered telling Sirius he was pretty hungry but it seemed like quitting. He bit his teeth together and watched the scenery change behind the window and it seemed weirdly like his last twelve years, things kept going past him and he couldn’t bring himself to care. After October 1981 he had left New York for a year and a half and gone to Boston, until one rainy day he had watched the water going down into the streets and realized the thought of Sirius was going to follow him anywhere he went. Then he had gone back to New York and for a while had thought it had been a mistake but now it was a bit difficult to remember any of it. The years had fallen into numb mess of memories that didn’t make any sense, the only thing that made sense was when four days ago he opened his door and Sirius stood there in the corridor, soaking wet and twelve years older and with a big backpack and a sharp stare.  
  
Sirius kept driving the whole afternoon but when the sun went down behind the mountains far away he was so tired his eyes kept shutting and then Remus told him to pull the car over. He probably hadn’t driven a car since his father had died so it had been more than five years and he hated that Sirius was staring at him, and also he felt he was more awake than ever and desperately waiting for something he didn’t want to be waiting for because it would leave him sad and empty once more.  
  
He drove thirty-something miles until they found a motel on the side of the road. It was a depressing place but very cheap and Sirius told the boy behind the desk that they’d only be needing one room and the boy didn’t look happy but tried to hide it and Remus felt like his insides were slowly turning inside out. They walked half a mile to a local supermarket because neither of them felt like driving and when they came back there was nothing else to do besides to go to their tiny room. Sirius kept messing with his own hair which twelve years ago would have meant he was nervous. Remus sat down onto the edge of the creaking bed and looked at the parking lot through the window and when he looked back Sirius was taking his shirt off.  
  
“Hey,” he said.  
  
“I’m going to take a shower,” Sirius said. “You should too.”  
  
He didn’t know what to say so he kept quiet. Sirius took off all his clothes and he wondered why, certainly Sirius could have kept his underpants on until he got to the bathroom but then again, he had seen Sirius naked a hundred times. He would have tried to fake that he wasn’t staring if he hadn’t been so tired and also still a bit angry. Sirius kept his back turned to him and walked to the bathroom. Sirius was almost as thin as he had been at eighteen and there was a scar on his back Remus didn’t like because it hadn’t been there before. He wondered about the scar until Sirius came back with a towel on his waist and hair dripping water on the floor.  
  
“Just do it,” Sirius said. “You’re going to regret it if you don’t.”  
  
“I can take a shower in the morning.”  
  
“You never take a shower in the morning,” Sirius said like it really was so simple, like he still knew what Remus did or didn’t do. And he kind of did, which was probably why Remus stood up and went to take the fucking shower. He undressed in the bathroom even though he knew it was stupid, but when he was finished with the shower he realized all his clean shirts were in his bag in the room with Sirius. He bit at his lower lip and pushed the door open. He thought he could feel Sirius’ eyes on his back when he went through his bag.  
  
“You aren’t eating.”  
  
“You don’t get to say that,” he said, “and besides, you’re thin too. You’re as thin as you were when we were eighteen.”  
  
“You watched me.”  
  
“Of course I watched you. You stripped naked straight in front of me. You didn’t have to do that.”  
  
“So,” Sirius said and Remus rushed to pull the t-shirt over his head, “you’ve had someone else.”  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
“When I was away. You were allowed of course. I’m not asking because I’m angry, I’m just –“  
  
“But you’re angry.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said and took a sharp breath, and Remus pressed his eyes shut just for a second before turning around to face him, “but that’s not why I’m asking.”  
  
“So why are you?”  
  
“I just want to know.”  
  
“I’m fucking jealous,” he said and absently wondered _why the hell_ , “you were gone for twelve years and I’m as jealous as I was as a stupid kid. Even if I don’t have a right to be, not then and especially not now.”  
  
“Jealous?” Sirius asked with a voice that was weirdly almost soft. “What the hell would you be jealous of?”  
  
“The girl at the diner.”  
  
“ _Remus._ ”  
  
“I know it’s nothing,” he said, “and I know it has nothing to do with me and you can do whatever you want and I know that this is exactly what I was like the last time, but I just… I just can’t…”  
  
“It’s fine.”  
  
“It’s not,” he said and sat onto the bed. “It’s been twelve years and I’m still as stupid as I was. But if you really want to know –“  
  
“I don’t,” Sirius said.  
  
“I didn’t have anyone else,” Remus said, “I didn’t, I couldn’t. I tried to kiss someone in a club once or twice but I always kept thinking about you.”  
  
“ _Fuck._ ”  
  
“Yeah,” he said, “so that’s it. Now perhaps we could just sleep.”  
  
“I didn’t realize.”  
  
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, “any of it, so please just shut up.”  
  
Sirius stared at him with wide eyes he knew very well, there were new lines under but otherwise they were the same as in September 1978 when they had kissed for the first time, or so he remembered. He turned his back to Sirius, lay down and pulled the duvet on. Then he waited. After what felt like minutes but probably wasn’t Sirius did the same. There was drunk laughter coming from the parking lot and it was really too early to fall asleep and Remus could hear Sirius breathing and every inch of him felt completely awake and also frightened to the bone. He was certain he would not sleep and he waited and waited and then he fell asleep.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Where’re we?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“You’re the one driving.”  
  
“You’re the one reading the map.”  
  
“We don’t have a map.”  
  
“We’re in Indiana.”  
  
“I knew that.”  
  
“We can stop to ask someone where exactly we are if you want to.”  
  
“No,” Remus said and rested his head against the back of the seat, “it doesn’t matter. You don’t know where we are going, though.”  
  
“Of course I don’t.”  
  
“Why did we leave?”  
  
“Because –“, Sirius said and then paused. He was wearing his messy black hair as a bun and there was hair falling out of it and Remus tried not to stare. “Because we didn’t know what to do in New York.”  
  
“And now that we’re here it’s going so well.”  
  
“Don’t,” Sirius said. “You wanted to leave too.”  
  
“I was in Boston for a year and a half,” Remus said and watched through the window. There was a small town in the distance. It looked like a dead place but probably wasn’t. “I tried to forget but then I realized I wasn’t going to and went back.”  
  
“So you were in New York for almost the whole time.”  
  
“I was miserable anywhere,” he said, “you know me, you remember how I was. I was ten times worse until I got used to it and then I just kind of went through the days.”  
  
Sirius shook his head a little. “You’re lying. Even you couldn’t be miserable for twelve fucking years.”  
  
“Tell me you weren’t,” he said, “tell me you had a lovely time.”  
  
“Don’t be an ass.”  
  
“You had someone else, I know you did, and I’m really fucking jealous but it’s not the point because I have no right. You were away and you had someone else.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said. Remus turned to look at Sirius but couldn’t reach his eyes. It was starting to rain outside. “Want to know more?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“It was a man,” Sirius said, “I don’t know if that makes it easier for you or not but it was. Or I had… I _had_ a few but I kind of… lived with him for a while. Say something, don’t just stare at me.”  
  
“Name,” Remus said, “tell me his name.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“You’re trying to hate him,” Sirius said, “when you should hate me.”  
  
“I’m not –“  
  
“Don’t lie to me. You hate it that I had someone else touching me. You hate it so much you feel sick.”  
  
He bit his lip. The first raindrops fell down onto the windshield. “Sorry.”  
  
“You were always like that,” Sirius said in a somehow distant voice, “and I know you hated it and couldn’t help it, it just took me… a while to get it. It felt like you were trying to hold me into something, you know, like you thought you had grabbed me and tried to make me stay and never asked me if I wanted to, and it was stupid because I wanted to, I really did. I’m sorry I was mean about it. It felt like you didn’t trust me at all.”  
  
“I didn’t.”  
  
“I didn’t either,” Sirius said, “as we know now. So I think we’re even.”  
  
Remus closed his eyes. Sirius’ car was loud and unsteady which was somehow very fitting because Sirius was all that too, and he listened the car and the man who sat next to him who he had never actually trusted.  
  
“We can go back now,” he said. “I’m not angry anymore, or I am but I can bear it. Let’s go back to New York.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“We’re going to go to…” Sirius frowned, “to Iowa, I think.”  
  
“And what the hell is in Iowa?”  
  
“Nothing. I don’t know. We’ll just drive through it.”  
  
“This is crazy.”  
  
“You’re sitting there quiet and nice with your big blue eyes and your cardigan and all and you say you can bear it but really you’re just trying not to imagine me with another man.”  
  
Remus swallowed. “You can’t just –“  
  
“I let him do everything,” Sirius said, “I didn’t exactly love him but I did it all with him, you know, everything you and I did. So you can imagine that and be angry at me and get it all out of your system.”  
  
“Fuck you.”  
  
“You’re doing it now,” Sirius said, “imagining me with him but you don’t know he looks like. You’re thinking about him holding me on my hips and coming inside me and I’m lying on my back and looking at him with my mouth half-open like I used to look at you.”  
  
“Why the hell are you doing this?” Remus asked though his voice wasn’t working exactly right and he was getting really angry even though he didn’t want to.  
  
“We were doing so fine,” Sirius said with a shrug, “we were talking politely and all that. So I’d rather ruin it right away than wait for you to get there and suddenly shut me out.”  
  
“I’m not –“  
  
“Yes, you were going to. But now talk to me. Tell me you’re angry.”  
  
“I’m fucking angry,” Remus said, “you didn’t have to tell me that, I didn’t want to know and you didn’t even _ask._ I don’t want to imagine you and him...”  
  
“Fucking.”  
  
“ _Stop that._ ”  
  
“No,” Sirius said. “But you can punch me later. When we aren’t driving.”  
  
“I’m not going to punch you, you idiot, you know that.”  
  
“It might help,” Sirius said, “perhaps it would have helped then too.”  
  
“You said you didn’t love him.”  
  
“Yes,” Sirius said kind of softly, “I didn’t. I think I couldn’t. We ended so badly, you and I, or… or we never ended.”  
  
Remus didn’t answer. They were somewhere in Indiana probably, he didn’t know or care, and they kept driving and he thought about the man who had had Sirius on his back wherever it was that Sirius had spent those twelve years, but Sirius hadn’t loved the man which was good although it shouldn’t have been. And he shouldn’t have been still aching like this when he thought about Sirius with someone else, or when he thought about Sirius at all. He shouldn’t have but he was, and _what can you do_ he thought as they drove past the fields and the day passed by and they just kept driving trying to get nowhere because there was no place to go.  
  
_New York in 1981,_ he thought, that was probably the place they were trying to get to or at least he was. Then he could have been less jealous and less sad and less everything and perhaps they could have fixed it. But he had lost Sirius then. He leaned against the window and looked at all the wrong places slowly fading into the distance and Sirius turned on the radio that thank God wasn’t playing Joan Baez anymore because otherwise he might have cried.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He said he could sleep in the car now but Sirius shrugged and said it was stupid and they were thirty-three and not twenty-one anymore and they’d have to find a town with a supermarket anyway. He said _fine_ but really he was very nervous. That morning he had woken up next to Sirius and for something like half a second he hadn’t remember what had happened in 1981. It had all come crashing down of course and he had pressed his teeth tightly shut trying to think about nothing at all. He had gone to the bathroom to wash his face and when he had come back Sirius had been sitting on their bed, watching him with eyes that had always known how to see through him but only in some spots. There had been times when he had been drinking alone in his flat in New York, especially in winter 1984, and eventually he had been sitting on the floor crying though he didn’t admit it afterwards and thinking Sirius Black had to be the world’s biggest idiot because he hadn’t realized Remus was completely, irreparably in love with him.  
  
Now he waited at the car as Sirius bought them food and beer. He said he wouldn’t drink and Sirius watched him with a frown but said nothing, and then Sirius said he had quit smoking in 1987 and Remus said he had quit a week after Sirius had left because that had been something they had done together and he had wanted to cut it all out. Sirius looked rather sad but didn’t ask whether it had worked. Probably it was fairly obvious. They ate a weird and unsatisfying dinner in the car but it left them so hungry that they stopped at the first diner they found. They bought a map there and Remus thought about how they would drive until the Pacific Ocean and then he didn’t know what the hell they would do. He would still be angry. He would still be jealous. He would still be in love with Sirius and uncertain whether Sirius realized it or even wanted to.  
  
“I’m with him,” Sirius said to the waitress in the diner even though the girl had barely smiled at him.  
  
“Oh,” the girl said, took their order and went.  
  
Remus looked at Sirius who was staring at his own hands on the table. He had always liked Sirius’ hands, even when they had been kids and the weird inappropriate uncomfortable crush hadn’t been mentioned aloud. “You didn’t have to do that.”  
  
“I don’t mind.”  
  
“She wasn’t even flirting with you.”  
  
“Your jealousy thing,” Sirius threw a quick glance at him, “it’s not really rational.”  
  
“I know, but –“  
  
“Yesterday, when the waitress smiled at me,” Sirius said, “how the hell could you think that I’d leave you there to go fuck some woman I never met before when I’m with you for the first time in more than a decade, tell me that.”  
  
Of course he couldn’t answer. _Why did you come_ , he wanted to ask but was afraid he wouldn’t like the answer so he didn’t. Later they walked to the car in silence and he wanted to apologize but wasn’t sure what for. Sirius turned the radio on so loud they couldn’t talk and then they drove twenty minutes or so in silence until there was a motel on the side of the road.  
  
“With one bed,” the man behind the desk said, eyeing them with a deep frown.  
  
“Yes,” Sirius said. “We can go elsewhere too.”  
  
“Here,” the man said and passed him the key. “But we charge extra if you make a mess.”  
  
“We won’t,” Sirius said sounding rather smug. Remus followed him upstairs and through a corridor that smelled like cleaner and cigarettes. The room was even smaller than the last one and the smell of cigarettes was so strong he immediately wished he had one. Sirius walked to the window, closed the curtains, opened a bottle of beer, and then looked at him. “Why don’t you drink?”  
  
“I need to –“, he began and swallowed the rest of it.  
  
“What?”  
  
“It’s weird being around you. I should be sober.”  
  
“ _Weird_ ,” Sirius repeated, “what kind of weird?”  
  
“Sirius.”  
  
“Tell me,” Sirius said, put the bottle on the table and then walked toward him. He was sitting on the bed and perhaps this was his cue and now was the time to run but he was too tired. He had been miserable for twelve years. There was not enough left of him that he could run from this. “If I happened to sit down next to you,” Sirius said and sat down next to him, “and if I, say, kissed you, would you kiss me back?”  
  
“Perhaps,” he said. His voice sounded very dry.  
  
“But I won’t,” Sirius said, so close to him now that he could smell him and oh _fuck fuck fuck_ it had been twelve fucking _years_ -, “I won’t because I did it last time. It’s your turn now.”  
  
“You did what?” he asked but kept staring at Sirius’ mouth.  
  
“I kissed you first,” Sirius said, “you have to remember that. I did it. You had a crush on me but didn’t do anything about it and so I did. But this time I won’t do it. If you want me you’ll have to kiss me. But perhaps you don’t, I know I look older and I’m not that pretty anymore and I have these lines under my eyes, you must have been disappointed when you first saw me after twelve years, and maybe you really got over me and I’m the one who never -”  
  
“Shut up,” he said and kissed Sirius who froze against him and kept staring at him and he had to close his eyes because Sirius wouldn’t.  
  
“Come on,” Sirius muttered against his mouth, “come on, come on, come on, you don’t have the guts –“  
  
“Fuck you,” he said and pushed his fingers into Sirius’ hair and then felt Sirius’ ragged sigh, “you come back after twelve years and you think you can just… you can just…”  
  
“What?” Sirius asked with a very small voice. “Your hands still feel the same, your fingers, all of it.”  
  
“Don’t talk,” he said but of course Sirius kept talking. He pushed Sirius so that he’d stop but he fell onto the bed and lay there on his back, watching Remus and saying things he didn’t want to hear. _You’re imagining me with him,_ Sirius said in a breathless voice, _come on, come here, you’re thinking about how I was with him and how he held me and how he fucked me and everything you used to_ – and he kissed Sirius as firmly as he could and Sirius only kept talking, _you didn’t forget me, all this time and still you can’t bear the thought of me with anyone else, but I’m right here, I’m lying here and I’m not going anywhere, you could -_  
  
He kissed Sirius until finally Sirius fell quiet and only breathed in and out under him, and he pulled away and sat on his heels on the bed. Sirius was watching him, his messy hair sprawled on the brown cover and mouth open and eyes wide, waiting, and still very sharp. He climbed out of the bed and heard Sirius sigh but he was already at the bathroom door. When he had the door locked he leaned against the sink and pressed his face as close to the mirror as he could, and then he opened his zipper with fingers that trembled only a little.  
  
“I know what you’re doing there,” Sirius’ voice came through the door.  
  
“Fuck off,” he answered but closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the mirror, _shit shit shit shit_ Sirius was _right there_ and Sirius had kissed him and it seemed very possible that Sirius was now pushing his own jeans out of the way and taking himself in his hand, he had seen Sirius do it a few times and he could remember it with detail or so he thought at least, and he heard his own breathing go faster as his fingers tightened.  
  
“You’re afraid,” Sirius said, “you’re so fucking afraid you won’t fuck me even though I’m in the next room and I want to.”  
  
“We aren’t – together anymore –,” he said. Sirius would know from his voice that he was getting close, and Sirius would grin slowly and raise his eyebrows and say _I see you like me_ or something ridiculous like that, and he had always wondered how the hell Sirius could be so irritating in bed and why wouldn’t he shut the fuck up and why hadn’t Remus stopped loving him a long time ago, years ago, back when -  
  
“I’m right here,” Sirius said and Remus bit his lip so hard it actually hurt. Somehow he had missed the steps because now Sirius had to be standing right on the other side of the door. He grabbed the sink with his hand and sped up his pace with the other, only a few seconds, only a few fucking seconds and he’d – “I can hear you. I can hear you doing it. And I’m doing it too. I’m – you should have, and I mean it, you should have fucked me, aren’t we messed up enough that it won’t matter anymore –“  
  
“I won’t open – that door –“  
  
“Fine,” Sirius said, “fine, just know that I’m going to – and I’m thinking about you, right now, I’m thinking about how you – kissed me and pulled my hair and – “  
  
“You never – shut up –“  
  
“No,” Sirius answered through the door, “I won’t, don’t – worry, it’s – alright. You’ll be alright.”  
  
“Are you close?”  
  
“Yeah. You kissed me.”  
  
“Of course I kissed you.”  
  
“You never – kissed me – before,” Sirius said and Remus walked to the door, sat down, and pressed his back against it, he was so _close_ and he could hear Sirius fucking _breathing_ , “you were always so – fucking scared – that I wouldn’t kiss you – back –“  
  
“Fuck you,” he said, squeezed tighter once more and then drew sharp breaths as his knees fell down onto the floor and his hand was leaking with white warm mess of it.  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said, “you just came, I know you came, so, later –“  
  
Remus closed his eyes and placed his hand on the cold floor. He heard Sirius gasping for breath and then Sirius’ head banged against the door and there was a ragged moan he knew very well but had forgotten. Sirius kept saying his name, _Remus Remus Remus,_ and for a moment he thought he was going to cry because he was very cold and sitting on the bathroom floor in a crappy motel somewhere in Iowa and he had come on his thighs and his stomach and he had done it himself even though the only person in the whole world that mattered was sitting not ten inches away from him, it was only that he had been so fucking lonely for so long that he couldn’t take it or he would break. But he didn’t cry. He stood up and went to wash his hands and then his face and finally he took a quick shower. When he was finished he could still hear Sirius’ now steady breaths through the door.  
  
It seemed he had finally made Sirius fall quiet and he felt oddly disappointed at that. He undressed with his back turned to Sirius, then pulled the sheets aside and got into the bed and Sirius followed him. He could still smell sex in the room. He thought about how he had been wanking alone for twelve years now and then he felt like crying again and knew Sirius knew from the way his breathing got a bit busier. It wasn’t so unlike the nights in summer 1981 when the flat had been unbearably hot and they had slept naked and Remus had thought he felt the sense of warmth radiating from where Sirius was lying, his back turned to him, and he had wanted to touch Sirius so badly sometimes it had actually hurt. But at that point they had only touched each other while fucking and Remus had wondered if it perhaps was because he was thinking about leaving, but no, it had to be because Sirius was the best thing in the whole fucking world and nothing that good could ever get stuck with Remus Lupin. Now he turned on his back and watched the ceiling with weird stains and heard Sirius breathing and it went on and on and on.  
  
In the morning he found that Sirius was still there. He was vaguely surprised and he remembered he had been surprised about that before.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Why did you come back?”  
  
“I told you already,” Sirius said without looking at him.  
  
“No you didn’t.”  
  
“Sure I did. At your place. In New York.”  
  
“You really didn’t,” Remus said and stared at a lonely farm in the middle of what seemed to be nothing at all. Sirius was driving slowly and he wondered if the car was about to break down or if Sirius was trying to irritate him. He wouldn’t say anything though because if he did, Sirius would snap at him and he was too tired to fight about it and all morning he had been listening to Sirius’ occasional breaths and trying not to remember how last night he had sat on the bathroom floor and listened Sirius through the door. He was unfairly angry at Sirius and he thought Sirius had probably done it on purpose. It seemed he had been angry at Sirius for twelve years and before that he had often thought Sirius did it all on purpose, every little thing that made Remus fall in love more and more, so nothing had really changed.  
  
“Fine,” Sirius said in a tired voice. “I didn’t tell you.”  
  
“Did something happen?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“But –“  
  
“One evening,” Sirius said without looking at him, “I was sitting in my kitchen and it was raining and I thought _Remus is never going to come looking for me._ ”  
  
Remus rested the back of his head against the seat. “That’s it?”  
  
“Were you planning to?” Sirius asked. There was salt in his voice and Remus knew the tone very well. Back then he used to hold onto it although he had never understood why. The more he had fallen in love the better he had known the spots that made Sirius go bitter and sharp. He remembered standing in the doorway once in 1981 and taking in everything Sirius said about him, and all way through he had been thinking _this is how he really sees me._  
  
“Probably not.”  
  
“And why’s that?”  
  
“Don’t ask.”  
  
“It’s not because you don’t want to kiss me,” Sirius said, and it was raining again and Remus thought the car was still slowing down, “because you did, last night. And it’s not because you don’t want to fuck me. You sat on the fucking bathroom floor and jerked yourself off so that I could hear you and you really, _really_ would have preferred me, the actual me, not just the thought of me through the door. And don’t tell me not to talk about it, we’re alone and I don’t even know where and there’s probably a thousand miles between us and New York so that if I want to talk there’s really nothing you can do about it. You also miss me, you miss me so much you haven’t slept with anyone else in twelve years which is actually pretty fucking crazy. So don’t tell me you haven’t missed me.”  
  
“I’ve missed you.”  
  
“I know,” Sirius said. His knuckles were going white. The car was probably going to stop.  
  
“We’re blocking the road,” Remus pointed out.  
  
“Fuck that,” Sirius said, “fuck the road, fuck _you_ , I had to come because we’ve lost twelve years and if you got to decide we’d lose the rest of our lives.”  
  
“I didn’t know where you were.”  
  
“I took my things and walked to my car and at the first gas station I stopped and called my boss to quit. And then I called my neighbor and asked if she could water my plants. And then I drove to New York.”  
  
“So,” Remus realized his throat felt quite dry, “how long did that take?”  
  
“Ask me. Ask me straight if you want to.”  
  
“ _Fine._ Where were you?”  
  
“In Denver.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“What the hell –“  
  
“First,” Sirius said, and Remus closed his eyes because clearly _first_ meant the week he had spent alone in their tiny flat in New York, crying until he had run out of it somehow and then it had got even worse, “I went to Baltimore. I was there for a few months. James kept calling me and saying that I should go back but I was pretty sure I’d end up with you the same day I went to the city and I didn’t really want to know if you could find more ways to make me feel my heart breaking, and I mean _really_ breaking, like there was this weight in my chest for fucking _months_ I think. So I thought it might help if I went further away.”  
  
_Sorry_ , Remus wanted to say, _sorry sorry sorry_ although that was weird because he was meant to be angry at Sirius and he had been doing very well with that for years.  
  
“I lived in a few small towns along the way,” Sirius said, “it always made me feel better when I got to a new place but it wore off soon of course. Then James stopped asking about you and about eight years ago I went to Denver and then I met this guy there and lived with him for a year or so and after we broke up I realized I had friends and a job and a favorite club and I didn’t want to move anymore.”  
  
“A year or so.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I can’t imagine it.”  
  
“Good,” Sirius said and then pulled the car over.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“Why? Were you trying to get somewhere?”  
  
Remus opened his mouth and then closed it. Sirius glanced at him like daring him to laugh but he didn’t, it got stuck in his throat and there was a weight in his chest and now that the car was quiet he could hear every breath Sirius took.  
  
“How is…” he began and then paused.  
  
“James,” Sirius said. “He’s fine. He’s in Boston. He’s working for Microsoft and it’s getting quite annoying, every time he calls me he keeps saying I should get a PC.”  
  
“And…”  
  
“Lily went back to Louisiana for a few a years. I think she did it to piss James off but I try not to take sides, even though of course I’m on James’ side. But anyway Lily went back to New York years ago, I think in 1987. The kid is with her.”  
  
“So, I might have seen them.”  
  
“You’d have recognized her,” Sirius said, “she still looks the same. She’s studying again, I think she wants to be a chemist or something else utterly boring. I saw her and Harry in Boston last year when they were visiting James.”  
  
“I can’t believe they broke up.”  
  
“It turned out quite well in the end. They look like they’re happier now.”  
  
The sky was grey and it looked like it was going to rain again. Remus breathed in and out. “I’m not happy.”  
  
“I know,” Sirius said in a steady voice.  
  
“I never was. When I was with you it was like I was so sure you were going to leave me in the end and sometimes I thought nothing could be worse than waiting for it to happen. But it was. It really was worse when you actually left me.”  
  
“I only -,” Sirius paused and grabbed the wheel but didn’t start the car, “you kept pushing me away and pulling me in and I couldn’t take it.”  
  
“I used to think,” Remus said, “later, when you were already gone, I used to think about how the fuck I could have done it better. But I don’t know. I really don’t know. I was so afraid and I still am.”  
  
Sirius sighed. The rain was falling onto the roof of the car. Remus closed his eyes and tried to lose himself to the sound of it. It was hesitant at first and then it grew stronger and bolder and he thought it would probably go on indefinitely, the rain, and he would sit in this crappy car with Sirius at the edge of the road somewhere in South Dakota until the end of time. Then he realized his cheeks were getting wet.  
  
“It’s okay,” Sirius said, and even with his eyes closed he knew Sirius was watching him.  
  
“It’s not,” he said, “I never got over you.”  
  
“Yeah, I figured.”  
  
“All these years and I’m just as stupid as then.”  
  
“When I was driving to New York,” Sirius said, “I thought _maybe Remus has forgotten about me and that’s why he never calls –“_  
  
Remus’ laugh sounded a lot like crying.  
  
“ – and then I thought _or maybe he’s still in love with me._ ”  
  
A car drove past them. Remus opened his eyes and saw that Sirius was still watching him. He breathed out but didn’t turn away even though his face was wet and it felt like he had let Sirius cut him open and see what was inside.  
  
“So,” Sirius said.  
  
“You know I am.”  
  
“I was never sure, not even when we were together. Sometimes it seemed impossible that you wouldn’t be. I thought I could see it in your eyes sometimes, like, this is not a metaphor, I actually thought it was in your eyes when I caught you watching me. But then you disappeared and couldn’t tell me why.”  
  
“I thought you were going to leave me,” Remus said in a dry small voice.  
  
“That makes no sense.”  
  
“You know how I was. You know how upset I got when you talked to someone in a club. I actually thought you were going to leave with them and not me.”  
  
“But we were –,” Sirius said and then swallowed.  
  
“And I knew it was crazy,” Remus said, “I knew I was supposed to trust you to like me but it seemed impossible, like it was literally the most improbable thing in the world that you would love me and stay with me. So I tried to leave first but it felt like someone had kicked me in my chest and then I came back to you. And I was so surprised that you took me back and then I was more afraid than ever because I knew I had blown it and you were going to leave me. And then you left me.”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, biting at his lower lip. Remus wiped his face with the back of his hand and wished he hadn’t cried and wished he had known how to stop but then again, Sirius had seen him at his worst over and over again.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’m hungry.”  
  
He blinked. “ _What?_ ”  
  
“Can we go somewhere,” Sirius said, looking at him with weirdly calm eyes, “like, can we try to find a diner, I really need something to eat.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said.  
  
“Great.”  
  
“Great.”  
  
“I have a few cassettes,” Sirius said and started the car, “I didn’t tell you because I was so pissed off with you but I’m not anymore, so.”  
  
“Okay,” he said slowly. The sound of the engine was louder than he had remembered. He thought he had probably said all those things only because it had been so quiet in there.  
  
“I have _The Best of Joan C. Baez_ if you’re interested.”  
  
“Fuck you.”  
  
“Yes,” Sirius said and smiled, “fuck me. But about Joan. I always thought your love for her was a bit weird for a man who was totally queer.”  
  
“I loved her music.”  
  
“You loved her voice,” Sirius said, “and sometimes when you had fucked me I put her on and you would go all limp in the bed and you’d just look so happy.”  
  
“Well surely you know I had other reasons to go limp in the bed.”  
  
“You looked so spent, and so completely satisfied, and when she began singing you always sighed and it was… I could never make you sigh like that, no matter what I did.”  
  
“Stop that,” Remus said. His face felt quite warm and Sirius was watching him and making it worse.  
  
“You loved Joan more than me,” Sirius said, “and I know you’re gay but if you could have chosen, you’d have chosen her over me in a second, and think about that, then she would have sung to you and you would have had that stupid smile in your stupid pretty face and you’d have –“  
  
“My face isn’t pretty.”  
  
“And that’s the first thing you complain about,” Sirius said.  
  
“I don’t listen her anymore,” Remus said, “you know that. I don’t listen her because it makes me feel like you’re still in my bed and you’re smiling your smug smile and then I feel like there’s a hole in my chest.”  
  
“You used to feel like there’s a hole in your chest after you fucked me?”  
  
“No,” he said, “of course not, you idiot, I used to – you’re joking.”  
  
“Of course I’m joking,” Sirius said quite gently. “I’m sorry you lost both me and Joan. You can listen her now, though. Because I’m here.”  
  
“Yes, but –“  
  
“What?”  
  
“We’re in South Dakota.”  
  
“I don’t get what you’re saying,” Sirius said firmly.  
  
_This isn’t really happening,_ Remus thought, _you aren’t here, you haven’t really come back to me, we can’t keep driving forever, we have to go back and then you’ll leave again and that’s how it is._ Sirius turned the radio on and it didn’t play Joan Baez and they drove until they found a diner. The waitress didn’t try to flirt with Sirius nor did Sirius tell her he was with Remus, and Remus ate and listened to Sirius making stupid remarks about cars in the parking lot, and eventually a few guys sitting in the booth next to them seemed like they were getting angry. Sirius was smiling when they got their things and walked out, and when they got to the car Sirius started laughing. It was insane and Remus thought he might have laughed too if only he hadn’t been so in love with Sirius and if the quiet fear inside hadn’t been so close to his skin.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The room had a light brown carpet and a bed that creaked loudly as Sirius sat on it, his hands folded in his lap and eyes following Remus. The light was dim and yellow and got stuck in the lines on Sirius’ face and therefore it was impossible to forget about the past twelve years. He had always thought Sirius was the prettiest thing, even when they had been thirteen and he hadn’t yet realized why he couldn’t make sense of the way James talked about Lily Evans. Later Peter had got a date with a girl next door. When Peter had given the rest of them a detailed report of how the girl had let him briefly touch her tits through her shirt, Remus had realized this was something he would always keep to himself, this certainty that Sirius Black was the most beautiful creature in the whole world. But Sirius had figured it out in the end.  
  
“What’re you thinking?”  
  
He shook his head.  
  
“You’re thinking that I’ve got old,” Sirius said, “you wanker, stop that.”  
  
“I’m really not.”  
  
“You’re staring at me. And you’re not completely wrong, I _have_ got a bit softer in some places and –“  
  
“Stop that. You’re trying to make me say how good you look.”  
  
“Is it working?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“ _So._ ”  
  
“I’ve always thought you’re very handsome.”  
  
Sirius licked his lower lip. “I wish you had trusted me, too. _Remus._ ”  
  
“What?” he asked and sat down beside Sirius. His heart was beating too fast but he ignored it the best he could.  
  
“I’m sorry about last night,” Sirius said, watching him too closely. “I kept pushing your buttons until you kissed me. It was probably… not a very nice thing to do. But I kind of meant it, you know, when I said that you never kissed me first. Sometimes I actually thought that after _years_ you still had this look in your eyes, like you weren’t sure I was going to kiss you back.”  
  
Remus swallowed.  
  
“You have it now too.”  
  
“Well,” he said, “I’m not –,” and then he paused because Sirius raised his eyebrows and leaned closer to him, just a little, just so that he barely noticed. His heart was impossibly heavy. He leant in and kissed Sirius and Sirius placed one hand on his neck and the other on his shoulder and kept him still.  
  
“You broke my heart,” he said, “you fucking broke my heart.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said in a soft low voice that lingered under Remus’ skin and made him ache for something, probably love, and how sad was that, and how terrifying, “I know. You broke mine.”  
  
“Can you –“, Remus said and then paused because Sirius was kissing him on the mouth, slow wet kisses he thought he remembered but somewhere along the way he had forgotten how Sirius’ fingertips felt on the back of his neck and going down the neckline of his cardigan, “I haven’t been with anyone in twelve years –“  
  
Sirius undressed him and he wondered how the hell Sirius’ hands didn’t tremble. When his shirt and his jeans were lying on the floor, Sirius pushed him carefully until he lay down on the bed and he thought it was crazy, it was weird, it had never been like this and he didn’t want to be _seen_ , but Sirius placed his thumbs under the waist of his underpants and pulled and he heard his own ragged breathing and closed his eyes.  
  
Later he thought he didn’t know how to do it anymore, it had been too long, all of him was aching for it so bad he thought he might cry and still he didn’t dare to touch Sirius even though Sirius was now lying on the bed and watching him with his mouth half-open and fists clenched to the sheets and knees apart. He watched as Sirius swore at him and pushed one of his own fingers inside and still kept staring at him, and he realized his own breaths were filling the room as well as the lazy tap of the rain against the window was. He pulled Sirius’ hands away and placed them on his own thighs. Sirius kept watching him. He listened to the rain and the bed that creaked when he grabbed Sirius’ hips and bit his own teeth together and tried not to come right away, and Sirius pressed his heels against the small of his back and pulled him closer still until neither of them could take it anymore. He listened to Sirius’ breaths and his own and the sound of his own heart that went on and on and on as if he hadn’t been terrified.  
  
_I’m going to lose this_ , he thought _, I’m going to lose this and it’s going to break me_ , and Sirius watched him and then came after four or five tucks. He pressed his fingertips into Sirius’ skin and Sirius sighed so deep he thought he saw it tremble in Sirius’ chest, and then he came too and the bed sounded like an animal crying. He thought it would fall down but it didn’t. He pulled away but Sirius didn’t inch, and he looked at the mess on Sirius’ stomach and thighs and on the sheets and on his own hand, and Sirius placed his palm on Remus’ thigh probably because he couldn’t reach anywhere else.  
  
“We need a shower,” he said.  
  
“Fuck that,” Sirius said in a deep crumbling voice, “I don’t care. We’re going to sleep, and then we’re going to drive to Wyoming and find some crappy motel and a loud creaking bed and you’re going to fuck me again if I can take it and probably even if I can’t because I just can’t miss this, not after twelve years, and then to Idaho and we can eat in those little diners and people are going to look at us and think we’re probably fucking because I’m walking funny and you’re looking smug and –“  
  
“You’re the one who always looks smug,” Remus said, “and what about when we run out of places to go?”  
  
“We can keep driving circles.”  
  
“We really can’t.”  
  
“Look,” Sirius said, “I know you’re freaking out. But I’m going to sleep with my face against your neck anyway.”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
He didn’t sleep more than three or four hours. Sirius fell asleep chest pressed against his back and he felt Sirius breathing in and out and the smell of sweat and come lingered and the room was too cold and the duvet too short and Sirius’ skin too warm and so Remus’ toes were soon freezing and his back was covered in sweat. He tried to move but Sirius grabbed his arm. The rain stopped at some point. When Remus woke up, there was a narrow line of light on the carpet, Sirius was still lying beside him and he was more afraid than he remembered ever being but then again, that was probably just the kind of a thing that would go hazy with time.  
  
  
**  
  
He had never been to Wyoming. It seemed somehow unfair that later he should remember only how they pulled the car over and lowered the seats and then kissed until he came in his underwear while Sirius was laughing silently and unzipping his own trousers. He tucked Sirius’ shirt upwards and kissed his stomach and tried to kiss lower but Sirius stopped him and said he remembered the times they had been sitting in their tiny kitchen in 1980 drinking too much cheap wine and talking about how Remus didn’t like giving head. Remus said he had been drunk and besides it was possible he had changed his mind, but Sirius caught his right hand and placed his fingers around himself and he watched their hands and then Sirius’ face and the cars kept driving past them but it was already getting dark so there was a good chance no one saw them.  
  
_How this will end_ , he thought when they were back on the road again and Sirius was humming a song he didn’t recognize more than slightly out of key, and then he stared at the forests in the distance and refused to think about it further. It was almost midnight when they found a motel that looked cheap enough. Sirius went to take a shower and left the door ajar and Remus walked in a small circle on the carpet even though he really was too tired for it. He was still doing it when Sirius pushed the door open and he knew Sirius knew what he was thinking, but he stopped walking at least and Sirius went past him dripping water onto the floor.  
  
“You know,” Sirius said when they were already in the bed their legs tangled in together and Remus mouth against Sirius’ neck so that he more felt than heard Sirius’ words, “I only left because you had left me before.”  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
“And I wasn’t sure if you even liked me anymore. You wanted so much to be with me but still you kept me at a distance.”  
  
“I was trying – I couldn’t – “  
  
“I tried too. When you came back, I tried to forget about it, but you kept saying you were fine and you really weren’t and you watched me like you didn’t know what I was doing there anymore. If I hadn’t left, you would have.”  
  
“You don’t –“  
  
“Well of course I don’t know that,” Sirius said, “because I left before you had a chance to do it again and now we’ll never know. But don’t you try to tell me you were happy.”  
  
“I wasn’t, but –“  
  
“It felt like,” Sirius said, his palm resting on Remus’ shoulder blades and there was no way Remus could ever leave, “like we had used up all the good things and what was left was only salt.”  
  
“Sirius –“  
  
“I kind of regretted it, but you never called, you never did anything, and I began thinking that if you had actually wanted me, you would have at least tried –“  
  
He held Sirius’ jaw and kissed him. Sirius fell quiet but didn’t squirm away and he thought that perhaps, just perhaps he was slightly braver than he had been. “I’m trying now.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sirius said in a voice barely audible. “I didn’t know how to fix it.”  
  
“I’m the same as then,” Remus said, “I only look older. I still can’t believe that you might want to be with me.”  
  
“Watch me.”  
  
“I’m really quite terrified.”  
  
“I know you are,” Sirius said, “but if you want to get rid of me and go back to New York, you’ll have to take a bus because I’m not turning around. And you always hated them.”  
  
“Especially when there’re kids on there.”  
  
“We’ll go to see James,” Sirius said, “Peter too, he said you stopped answering his calls. He lives in New Jersey and has a wife named Susie and a dog and judging by his voice he’s pretty happy.”  
  
“So we’re going back to New York.”  
  
“I don’t know. Not now at least.”  
  
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Remus said even though he felt heavier with every word, “everything went to hell last time and we’re still the same and we’re here in the middle of nowhere and we aren’t even together and –“  
  
“And?” Sirius asked slowly.  
  
“And nothing.”  
  
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Sirius said, “no one else is as convinced about being sad and lonely as you are.”  
  
“I’m –“  
  
“And what do you mean we aren’t together?”  
  
He breathed in and felt Sirius’ palm resting on his back.  
  
“So I thought,” Sirius said. “Are you going to sleep now?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Great,” Sirius said, pulled his hand away and turned around. A little later the mattress shifted and there was a hasty kiss on Remus’ forehead and then a slow one and then muttered words he couldn’t quite make sense of.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The first time they had kissed had been in 1978 or so he remembered. _Oh, Remus_ , Sirius had said, slightly drunk and with a nervous stare that had been there for a while but Remus hadn’t known how to make sense of it, and then Sirius had said _I think you want to kiss me._ His heart had sunk down because that wasn’t supposed to happen, ever, Sirius wasn’t supposed to ever know, but now here they were, alone in their flat they had rented together because it was cheaper that way and because they were almost best friends.  
  
He swallowed and knew Sirius saw it all on his face.  
  
And Sirius leant in and kissed him and in the years to come he never managed to make himself believe Sirius had meant it.  
  
  
**  
  
  
The ocean was pretty much the same as in the pictures. He looked at it for five minutes or so and then he had to go back to the car because it was too cold outside. There was clearly something that should have been said but neither of them could say it. _We can’t go back_ , Remus thought but the only thing ahead was the ocean.  
  
“So,” Sirius said, started the car and looked at him, “where do you want to go next?”

**Author's Note:**

> This story possibly is one of my own favorites of what I've lately been writing. And I loved writing the road trip in North America -thing in this story, and obviously I know nothing about the states visited in this story and have never been in that side of the world but probably that was why writing it (and looking at the map) was so exciting.
> 
> As always, you can find me on [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com) if you want to say hi or look at the pretty pictures I reblog there.


End file.
